In December Joe & I picked up our 7 week old little doberman girl, Reagan, a couple weeks earlier than originally planned. Fortunately we had done a lot of preparation so we were ready for our adorable (and WILD!) bundle of joy! Here’s our top 10 things that we did to prepare for a new puppy!
Here’s our top 10 tips to prepare for a new puppy!
1 Location location location | Decide where all the puppy stuff is going to go. For example, where will your puppy sleep? Where will you bath her? Where will you store all the supplies? Where will her food bowls go? We actually tested out a couple of locations for the food bowls to find a spot that would work!
2 Dog sitter | We took a look at our vacation schedule to decide if there were any trips that we could bring Reagan with us as opposed to others where we would need to get a puppy sitter. We found some great folks to watch Reagan on Rover.com.
3 Puppy classes | My dog training classes have young puppy classes as early as 8 weeks. We found that it was well worth the money to get her in to a puppy class right away as opposed to waiting a couple months. This way we’re encouraging the right behaviors from the beginning. I also had NO idea how to train a dog.
4 Off limits rooms | You’ll want to decide what rooms, if any, are off limits. We opted to make the bedrooms off limits or now, possibly allowing at a later time. For us it was easier to only give Reagan partial access to the house. We had to get disciplined with keeping the bedroom doors shut at all times as Reagan has a nack for getting in to things that she shouldn’t!
5 Off limits furniture | On a similar note, will any furniture be off limits? We decided that beds were absolutely off limits, but our family room couch was OK. In fact the family couch is the only ON limits piece of furniture that Reagan is allowed on. Admittedly we initially we against letter her up on the couch, but changed our mind a month in 🙂 .
6 Find a vet | We spent some time researching vets near by to find the best option for us. We not only found a vet but also a dog emergency room that was close by our home. Make sure to call your chosen vet is accepting new patients!
7 Schedule | Joe & I sat down to create a daily schedule of puppy duty. Remember that your new puppy is going to need pretty much constant attention. We alternated evenings & mornings AND overnight duty. For the first month or so Reagan needed to be taken outside in the middle of the night so one of us would set an alarm to get up.
8 Puppy food | We reached out to our breeder ahead of time to find out what type of puppy food she will be eating when we pick her up. Even if you want to switch food, you’ll need to have some of their current stuff on hand so that you can make that transition smooth and over the course of at least a week or two.
9 Make a list and check it twice | Before we bought ANYTHING, we compiled a list of everything that we thought we needed. Then we showed a couple of our dog owning friends. Sure enough these friends had some great suggestions to both add to and take off our list. I made my own list of rather surprising puppy supplies that I would have never thought we needed!
10 Shopping | A couple weeks before we brought home Reagan, we did all the shopping at once. This was more efficient, but also helped us not go crazy buying unnecessary puppy items.
Some of the links in this list are affiliate links. It doesn’t cost you any extra, but I earn a little commission if you decide to purchase. Regardless of whether or not I receive a commission, I only recommend products that I personally use and genuinely recommend! Thanks for helping support this site!
Leave a Reply